IPL 2024 has it all: Dhoni's exit as captain; Pant's entry, and Pandya's rise as skipper

IPL 2024 is already setting itself up as the league of surprises. And the first ball of the tournament hasn’t even been bowled yet.

In the biggest of a string of surprises that have dotted the lead-up, Ruturaj Gaikwad was unveiled on Thursday as the captain of Chennai Super Kings (CSK), a little over 24 hours before the champions begin their title defence at home. Up against them on Friday night at the MA Chidambaram Stadium will be Royal Challengers Bengaluru (that’s right, they have decided to toe the line and embrace the new official name of the Garden City), who have endured 16 fruitless seasons but who must draw inspiration from the efforts of their women counterparts, who triumphed in Season 2 of the Women’s Premier League less than a week back.

Dhoni steps down

There was little indication until Thursday afternoon that Mahendra Singh Dhoni, Mr CSK who had led the team to a record-equalling five IPL crowns, would not helm the side once again. But in another show bereft of fanfare, CSK brought out their new captain, who has grown in stature under Dhoni’s tutelage over the last four seasons and is tipped to be more of a long-term option than Ravindra Jadeja, who had a terrible run and quit as skipper midway through the 2022 season when it became clear to all concerned that the transition wasn’t working out.

Gaikwad is one of several new captains, though not all of them are necessarily first-time skippers apart from Shubman Gill, who will mastermind Gujarat Titans’ fortunes after the latter allowed Hardik Pandya to be snapped up by Mumbai Indians during the mid-season trading window, and Pat Cummins.

Pandya to helm MI

Pandya’s return to Mumbai Indians, for which he was a star performer for nearly a decade, has been the biggest talking point of the last three months. In December, Mumbai reacquired the ace all-rounder from Gujarat, which he had led to the title on their debut in 2022 and to the final last year. In itself, that was a huge development, particularly with a big auction due next season. More significantly, Pandya came on board as the new captain of the franchise, replacing not just one of the IPL’s most celebrated, successful and respected skippers but also the all-format captain of the national team.

Rohit Sharma was elevated as MI captain midway through 2013, when the franchise was going through a horror run under Ricky Ponting and the Australian himself was struggling to do justice to a permanent place in the XI. When Ponting stepped down in the team’s interests, Rohit was looked at as a natural successor even though the temptation to turn to Sachin Tendulkar, if only in a stop-gap capacity, might have been immense. Rohit reiterated the wisdom of elevating him to the captaincy by inspiring his team to rise from the ashes and go all the way in 2013, a feat he would replicate in 2015, 2017, 2019 and 2020.

Over the last three seasons, however, Mumbai haven’t quite been the beast of the past and Rohit’s numbers with the bat too have dipped. And while it can’t be denied that cricket was at the forefront of one of the more dramatic changes in the IPL leadership stakes, Mumbai are clearly looking beyond merely the sport. At 30, Pandya has many more years of competitive cricket ahead of him than Rohit (who will turn 37 on April 30); under the younger man, they can build both a team and a brand which will take them potentially to the turn of the decade. From the franchise’s perspective, their logic was well defined and easy to understand. They should, however, have acted with greater sensitivity given the personnel involved, and given that Pandya, head coach Mark Boucher and the franchise itself will need Rohit to fire on all cylinders if they are to end a longish drought and lay their hands on the title again.

The dynamics between Pandya and Boucher on one side, and Rohit on the other, is certain to be scrutinised with eagle eyes over the next couple of weeks (as of now, the schedule has been announced only till April 7), but it won’t be the only eyeball-grabber.

Pant in action

How Rishabh Pant shapes upon his comeback to competitive cricket, less than 15 months after that horror car accident towards the end of December, will be another massive talking point because it will impact more than the individual, his franchise (Delhi Capitals), and the tournament.

Pant is one of those individuals whose value extends far beyond bruising knocks and electric glovework. His energy and enthusiasm are infectious and spread through the ranks rapidly; in the months when he sweated it out in trying to speed up his rehabilitation process, Indian cricket missed the package that the bubbly 26-year-old is. If he has a good first half of the IPL and is able to convince Rohit, head coach Rahul Dravid and chief selector Ajit Agarkar that he is back at nearly his best match fitness-wise, he could find himself on the way to the Americas for the T20 World Cup in the summer.

Like Pant, Shreyas Iyer will return to mastermind Kolkata Knight Riders’ fortunes after sitting out the last season with injury, while Sunrisers Hyderabad, the 2016 champs, have a new skipper in Cummins, the Australian Test and ODI captain who made heads turn by attracting a successful bid of Rs 20.50 crore. That wasn’t even the highest bid of the December auction; that honour went to Cummins’ Australian left-arm pace mate Mitchell Starc, who was snapped up for an IPL record Rs 24.75 crore by KKR.

New bouncer rule

Cummins and Starc, among others, will welcome a new addition to this year’s IPL – two bouncers in an over as opposed to the one in vogue till now, which added further grist to the theory that the bowlers were mere human bowling machines.

Now that they have been armed with an additional bouncer, pace bowlers can be more effective and less predictable though as always, the willow-wielders will be the ones who will rake in all the accolades, given their emphasis on bulking up and spending hours working on range-hitting in the nets.

This IPL will be no different from its predecessors in many ways but already, it has shown that it will showcase its unique character too. Can’t wait for ‘Play’ to be called.